


Chromaesthesia

by bluestonewings



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Canon Compliant, Chromaesthesia, Color, Demyx is precious, Drabble, Ficlet, Gen, Headcanon, Music, No Romance, Synesthesia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-15
Updated: 2016-09-15
Packaged: 2018-08-15 03:37:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8041015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluestonewings/pseuds/bluestonewings
Summary: A small drabble on why Demyx never seems to stop playing his sitar.





	Chromaesthesia

**Author's Note:**

> **Headcanon: Demyx, as a Nobody, has chromaesthesia. Specifically, note-color chromaestheisa, or unique colors for musical pitches.**

“Be quiet, boy.”

Demyx looks up in surprise, then flinches instinctively at the large man who stares back at him.

“W-what?”

The man (Xaldin? Xaldin, yeah. That’s his name) frowns, and Demyx realizes he probably thinks he’s being sarcastic.

“You’ve been plucking at your guitar for as long as you’ve been sitting here. Do you ever stop?”

Oh.

“Uh, sorry? I’ll go somewhere else, heh.” Demyx stops himself from reminding the man that Arpeggio is a _sitar_. Some things are just lost causes. He sits up and watches Xaldin head back to the kitchen, then settles back down, hands already ghosting over the strings again.

_ Do you ever stop? _

* * *

 

It seemed like nobody (ha) had noticed this. Or maybe they all had, and it just didn’t bother them anymore. It’s not like he could ask. The founders were about as approachable as angry pufferfish (except Xigbar, but he’s also impossible to find), and Axel and Saix were either inseparable or sulking in their rooms (Axel is okay company when he can find him). Demyx personally doesn’t like his room. He doesn’t like the castle as a whole much either; too much gray on gray on gray. But if he hangs around in the Gray Room, he can see the others wandering around occasionally, and hope for some conversation. But even then, it’s clipped sentences, irritated scowls, and dull content.

Nobody had noticed how dull everything was. Demyx remembers his first few days at the castle, the initial confusion (I should be dead, what is going on, where is-), getting rules drilled into his head.  _ We have no hearts. No emotion. As a member of the Organization, your job will be to assist us in researching how to get them back. _ So he becomes Demyx, number nine, and wonders where everything went.   


The first hint he got was when he peered at himself in the mirror, to try and see if he could notice anything _different_. He couldn’t tell if he looked different. Were his eyes a different color, like in all those stories? He couldn’t remember.

His sitar definitely was a different color. The first time he properly summoned it was when Vexen and Axel were talking at him about what Nobody magic was as they poked around some other world (Vexen said it was recon practice, so would he please start focusing?). When it first popped into existence in his arms, Axel had stared at it and Vexen told him to stop kidding around. But a sitar was apparently all that Demyx got, and he went about exploring his own talents after Axel had stopped snickering, and Vexen had given up in exasperation. His old sitar wasn’t this indistinguishable blueish purple gray color; neither did it have sharp points as tuning pegs. But it rests comfortably to his hip when he holds it, and when he closes his eyes he can maybe pretend for a moment that he was lounging around back home. He plucks at the strings experimentally, and-

He cries out as his eyes fly open, and suddenly, there is  _ color_, true color, surrounding him. But as the clean, bright note from his sitar fades away, the blue that had filled his vision fades away as well.

“What!?” He looks around in confusion. Vexen, halfway down the street already, stops and scowls at him again. “Why are you making such a racket? Just-”

“No, wait wait. Hang on.” Was he going crazy? Demyx brings his hands to the strings again, and tentatively picks out a chord, then-

Color. Color again, this time, not blue (it’s a different pitch this time, he muses), but instead, the grass peeking through the sidewalk is a shiny green (it was a mossy color before), and as he raises his head to ask Vexen what was going on, he notices that the older man’s eyes have gone from a deep olive color to a bright, vibrant emerald.

He must have been staring, because Vexen has stalked back to him and is staring back at him through now-narrowed, once-again olive colored eyes.

Demyx swallows, then plays the same chord again. And once again, a bright green fills in parts of the world around him, and he nervously asks, “Do you see anything?”

Vexen crosses his arms and steps back. He’s staring straight at the newly-green trees, how can he not-

“What, exactly, am I supposed to be seeing?”

Oh.

Demyx falters, but continues to strum his sitar. It’s hypnotising to watch the color fade with the noise, then burst into life again. “Um, nothing. I just thought-”

“We already have a resident illusionist,” Vexen squints at him, “if you think that might be your ability as well, then you can talk to Zexion later.”

“Right,” Demyx says, still watching the green leach out from the world around him, “I’ll work on that.”

Vexen’s turned away again before Demyx calls out. 

“Hey, Vexen?”

“Yes?” comes the irritated reply.

“What color are your eyes?”

The scientist turns around with a raised eyebrow, and Demyx is about to hastily take back his words when he responds, “Green.”

Demyx says nothing, and after looking at the grass for a moment longer (it looks so gray now, how hadn’t he noticed this before), chases after the older man, who begins to lecture him on the specifics of reconnaissance.

* * *

 

Everything he does seems to tie back to music. His element turns out to be water, and the jets of water he control all follow whatever tune he plays out on Arpeggio. His Dusks (Dancers, he calls them) seem to react to the music as well, as they bob and sway and spin around him while he’s out in the field. But it’s not the same as the colors that pop up whenever there is music around. He has to focus on bringing the water out, find that inner spark of magic that allows him to summon something from nothing, and slice the heartless into black smoke. The colors just show up, and it takes him some time (and some library visits) to realize that it’s not magic at all, but some intrinsic part of his brain’s wiring now.

So he never stops playing his music, just to see those colors again - the colors that fill everything with something akin to life.

Demyx hums as he resumes his playing. Arpeggio returns to its bright blues, and he knows that his eyes haven’t changed color.

Chromaesthesia. It’s a pretty word. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! If you enjoyed this drabble from a totally random headcanon, please leave a kudo and a comment! I'd really appreciate any feedback and/or any ideas you have :D  
> (Many thanks to the lovely ZettaCrashKeysCatSona for her help!)


End file.
